Plant & Animal Genome IX Conference

Workshop: Aquaculture
W10_05.html

CATFISH GENOMICS: PAST ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

The Fish Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology Laboratory, Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures and the Program of Cell and Molecular Biosciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849 USA

Much progress has been made in the last four years in catfish genomics. The major milestones include development of large numbers of molecular markers, production of both intraspecific and interspecific mapping resource families, production of framework genetic linkage maps, and identification of several performance traits-linked DNA markers. Recently, several major projects were just initiated including construction of a physical map using a large-insert BAC library and transcriptome analysis aimed at identification of most catfish genes. In spite of these and other major advances, many challenges are still facing researchers of catfish genomics: more markers need to be developed and added to the existing linkage maps; BAC contigs await to be constructed using restriction fingerprinting; more type I markers need to be identified and mapped to both the linkage maps and the physical map allowing integration of the linkage maps and the physical map; large scale sequencing of normalized cDNA clones must be conducted to produce expressed sequence tags (EST) as resources for application of the powerful cDNA microarray technology; research on identification of genes involved in disease resistance, growth, feed conversion efficiency, processing yields, and other important performance traits for aquaculture should be intensified by QTL mapping and/or by functional genomics studies using the EST microarray technology; bioinformatics capabilities should be increased. Details on past research achievements will be reviewed in relation to the future needs of catfish genomics.